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Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

desertsun.com

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Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#71

Post by ghaff »

ralphie02 wrote: post #63
almost_usual wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s because we already have highways and our car culture is hard to change. Highways were also originally built for national defense with the economic benefits as a secondary force. Defense projects traditionally get tons of funding in the US. Convincing a generation that witnessed two world wars to back a massive defense project wasn’t difficult.

Can you elaborate on the national defense? How is the highway useful with defending the country? Defending from who? I can only think of highways as secondary runways for planes but I'm unsure as to how much that helps your case.

Evacuating cities in the event of an atomic attack was also cited as a reason though that obviously seems questionable as well. As I wrote in another comment, the defense justification was probably mostly just a way to get the help get the act passed.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#72

Post by mch82 »

aiscapehumanity wrote: post #59
mch82 wrote: post #54

High speed rail is a bad investment. Rail systematizes discrimination, typically loses money, and struggles to provide a last mile solution. $60B can buy at least 600,000 electric vehicles with 3 million seats. Semi-autonomous vehicles are already capable of operating as a “train” in a dedicated freeway lane and autonomous operation is likely by 2033 (when California’s HSR would begin operation). This solution could…

600k additional vehicles sounds like a traffic density disaster.

The difference between small, point to point vehicles that operate like taxis and rail is that taxis actually get cars off the road.

I attended Hack for LA a couple years back and 1/3 of the traffic in downtown LA is drivers looking for parking. Switching to shared ride transit will decongest the roads.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#73

Post by bonestamp2 »

yongjik wrote: post #42

I think any talk about HSRs in the US should be able to explain US highways. American highway system is arguably one of the best in the world - it's also a gigantic government project, and it's constantly being extended. So how come America, with its proven track record of great highways, is totally impotent with high speed rails? The answer can't be just "American government doesn't work" or "the country is too big.…

Lobbying is another problem. For example, the Koch brothers have been involved in lobbying against (and placing public advertisements against) local public transportation improvements in a number of cities because it will hurt their oil industry companies and investments.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-pub...

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#74

Post by andy_ppp »

jedberg wrote: post #39

The California HSR has a lot of problems not matched in Taiwan. Firstly, once you get from San Jose to Bakersfield, then what? We don't have good public transit in LA, much less to Bakersfield. But even if the train went all the way to Union Station in Los Angeles, you'd still need to rent a car to get anywhere useful, or take Uber/Lyft. And same thing on the other end. What happens when you get to San Jose? You stil…

There really is no reason picking up a rental needs to be as time consuming as it is (could be dropped off like an Uber near to the station) and I’m amazed there isn’t a version of Uber that combines short hops from public transport somewhere timed for when the train arrives. These problems are actually opportunities in my opinion, I’m surprised Uber isn’t onto them...

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#75

Post by mlyle »

yongjik wrote: post #42

I think any talk about HSRs in the US should be able to explain US highways. American highway system is arguably one of the best in the world - it's also a gigantic government project, and it's constantly being extended. So how come America, with its proven track record of great highways, is totally impotent with high speed rails? The answer can't be just "American government doesn't work" or "the country is too big.…

1. The highways are such good competition that they make the already-dubious capital and operating cost picture of passenger rail even worse.

2. The US has the best freight and logistics rail system in the world. Existing rail right of way favors freight uses at the expense of passenger trains, which makes the passenger trains even less palatable. This is a feedback loop, where in turn rail ridership is low and gets even less resource share.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#76

Post by jtokoph »

ralphie02 wrote: post #63
almost_usual wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s because we already have highways and our car culture is hard to change. Highways were also originally built for national defense with the economic benefits as a secondary force. Defense projects traditionally get tons of funding in the US. Convincing a generation that witnessed two world wars to back a massive defense project wasn’t difficult.

Can you elaborate on the national defense? How is the highway useful with defending the country? Defending from who? I can only think of highways as secondary runways for planes but I'm unsure as to how much that helps your case.

It provide ways for military vehicles to cross the country easily and long stretches of highway could be used as aircraft runways.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#77

Post by Gibbon1 »

dehrmann wrote: post #36

I used to be more in favor of CA HSR, but I read an argument that said cities are congested, rural I-5 isn't, so we'd be better off building a second BART tunnel and electrifying Caltrain.

High speed rail is paying for half of the electrification project.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#78

Post by BurningFrog »

jaypeg25 wrote: post #8
pretendscholar wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why? Why are some government entities better at managing large infrastructure projects than other?

I'd say in the US at least it's hard for a politician to devote money toward a multi-year program that their constituents won't see the benefit of for quite some time (or in the case of upkeep and maintenance, at all). The politician isn't looking to do what's right, they're looking to get reelected.

> The politician isn't looking to do what's right, they're looking to get reelected.

But that's true in all democracies, pretty much by definition.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#79

Post by mlyle »

diego wrote: post #29
aodin wrote: post #20

For an article with quite a few numbers, it seems to be missing some basic ones: * Taiwan, area 36,197 km^2, population density 651 / km^2 [1] * California, area 403,932 km^2, population density 97 / km^2 [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories...

That's a nonsequitur. The California coast is pretty dense, the rest of the state has large amounts of empty space and national parks. Nobody would build a high-speed rail through Yosemite or Death Valley.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan#/media/...

vs.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:California_populatio...

The reddest areas on the California map would be orange on the Taiwan map.

A San Jose to Bakersfield route (comparable in length to the Taiwan route) has a huge low-population density area around the middle, so basically there's no prospect of using the rail for shorter trips. And the number of daily trips between San Jose and Bakersfield is likely to be limited.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#80

Post by Jagat »

ghaff wrote: post #66
almost_usual wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s because we already have highways and our car culture is hard to change. Highways were also originally built for national defense with the economic benefits as a secondary force. Defense projects traditionally get tons of funding in the US. Convincing a generation that witnessed two world wars to back a massive defense project wasn’t difficult.

>Highways were also originally built for national defense with the economic benefits as a secondary force. That's the standard story. From what I've read though, Eisenhower wanted to build the Interstate Highway System for a number of reasons of which defense was only one--and possibly a fairly minor one. But he knew that playing up the defense angle was a good strategy to get the plan passed.

Roads were built in the ancient Rome mainly for troops, horses, and chariots to travel with ease for battles and defense. Similar story.
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